Leave my bangers alone, says lawyer

By Michael Paterson

12:00AM BST 14 Jul 2000

A MIDDLE-aged woman lawyer who took up racing cars in her forties appeared in court yesterday after neighbours complained that her collection of battered vehicles was lowering the tone of their village.

Ruth Dutton, 50, has been accused of breaching the Town and Country Planning Act by keeping eight of what the council called "banger racing" cars in the front garden of her £250,000 bungalow in Holmer Green, Bucks. Mrs Dutton is appealing against an enforcement notice from the local council. Amersham magistrates were told how Mrs Dutton tinkered with her racing cars outside her home in a quiet cul-de-sac.

She raced every fortnight at a circuit in Wimbledon, south London. Mrs Dutton admitted that her driveway was often littered with car parts and tyres, and on one occasion, had as many as 10 vehicles on it.She said she and her husband Nick, also 50, were being persecuted by residents and Chiltern Vale District Council. Mrs Dutton told the court: "There's no regulation stopping me from parking my cars in the road.

"But I have not done that out of courtesy for my fellow residents. It would have been World War Three if I parked all my cars in the road." A planning officer for the council, Tracey Francis, told the court that residents had complained last year about the cars littering the driveway of the Duttons' home. Afterwards, Mrs Dutton vowed to appeal to the Crown Court if her appeal failed. She said: "I'm determined to carry on with my hobby. It's a grown-up version of bumper cars."